


Darkness is a harsh word (don't you think?)

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Break Up, Family, Grief, M/M, Modern AU, Mourning, Other, Suicide, non specific mention of terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3525167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grief. Love. Loss. Death.<br/>If this isn't darkness, then what is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness is a harsh word (don't you think?)

**Author's Note:**

> So let me tell you, this is...um, whatever. I meant it to be a bit depressing, I'm not sure though.  
> It's my first time writing a merlin fic (don't shoot me, I just had to write this), so...
> 
> I hope you like it, anyway.

"I'm sorry."

It's the last thing she wants to hear.

By her side, her father sits, still as a phantom. He's aged a thousand years in two hours, pale, thin and looking every inch of the 60 that he was. She wonders if he's heard what they said. She wonders if he understood. She wonders where his grief has taken him. She finds that she doesn't want to know.

She doesn't even want to know where hers will take her. 

That is, if it is grief she feels right now.

"Would you like to say goodbye?"

_"Goodbye is such a silly word." I was eight then. He cocked his head at me and snickered. "Is that so? So I suppose you won't be saying goodbye, or wishing me luck. Not that I'll need it." He was the most arrogant boy I'd ever known. Always too sure, jumping head first into anything, be it games or fights. He'd come home with plenty of black eyes, but we all knew that he gave better than he got._

_He dropped the tennis kit into the waiting car and returned to the front door, holding out his wrist._

_"I know you don't like to say goodbye." He said, smugly. "But it is customary for a lady to give a knight a token before battle."_

_"You're not a knight." "Of course, I am! But then again, you're not a lady, are you?"_

_I_ _punched his arm for that. (Not his racket hand, the other one.)_

_He left home with my favourite hair ribbon around his wrist._

 

She'd forgotten how hideous hospital rooms smelled. Even in the best of places. Or possibly it wasn't really the smell of hospitals, but the smell of death, that she abhorred so much. It clung to you like a second skin, one that she couldn't wash off, even if she scrubbed until her skin peeled off, scrubbed and scraped.

_"Really Morgs, it's just a scrape." He held my bruised foot to the tap. I was eleven then, and almost conscious of myself. But my knee did hurt. And he'd offered to help. He knew about bruises and scrapes, he'd gotten so many. I grimaced._

_My foot hurt terribly. And it stung. And my eyes stung with tears. Tears that spilled when he began to clean out the scrape with a swab of cotton. And then plastered it, even though it didn't really need that._

_"There you go." And I stuck my tongue out at him._

_He laughed._

He wasn't laughing now, lying all still on the white sheets, He wasn't even smiling. In her eyes, he'd never looked thinner, never paler, never smaller.

Perhaps they'd all forgotten how so very  _young_ he was.

25\. Twenty five. 

_Twenty five. With his whole life ahead of him._

She takes his hand in hers. They're thinner than she remembers. Not the hands that wrapped her bruises, pummeled the boys who hurt her, led her to the dance floor with a smirk on his lips.

The room is dark. And the darkness seeps into her chest.

_"It's awful dark." I told him, under the stars of the countryside. We were out camping, Father and the two of us. It was a warm summer and yet there was a cold breeze that night. He was sitting on the grass, a bit away from the campsite. I sat by his side. He was handsome, I knew how my friends at school talked about him. (I never told him that. It would have been weird. And his ego was fat enough.)_

_He glanced at me. "That's a dreadfully unimaginative word, Morgana. I thought Miss Lake thought you were so Lovely with your words."_

_"Well, it's dark. What do you want me to call it? Harsh? Morose? Macabre? Inky black?"_

_He barked  out a laugh. Seventeen, to my fourteen. And ruffled my hair._

_"You paint it so badly, Morgs. It's only darkness. Not wolves, or death or anything." I told him, childishly that bad things lived in the dark. He looked at me strangely._

_"Bad things don't live in the dark, silly. And being dark doesn't make things bad."_

_I'll never forget the look in his eyes when he said that._

 

"Hey," she says. "I'm sorry I couldn't slip in before." He can't hear her.

"The doctors told me to come and say goodbye. But it's not goodbye is it? It's never goodbye.

I'm not going to ask you why, only that I wish you'd said something. Nothing was worth this, nothing in the world. 

You told him once that no man was worth his tears. He won't cry for you, but you're worth all my tears. I don't want you to leave, there's so many people you've got to live for. Me, Father, Leon, and so many others who love you so." 

She's crying, in a way that only she will cry for him. She never meant to, but it hurts, oh dear god it hurts.

"This wasn't worth it, Arthur! This  _never_ was! Nothing ever was!" And all the grief she feels is replaced for a moment by a fierce rage at  _him,_ and all the world that pushed them to this brink.

"And now you're leaving." She calms herself. "I'm not letting go. Not until you do." She pushes his wheat gold fringe out and places a kiss on his forehead.

There's a shrill, flat  _beeeeeep,_ that fills the cold room, which feels a little colder, a little darker, a little sadder. 

 

She's got friends who help her grieve for him. Leon's been a rock, a steady pillar to lean on, a shoulder to cry on. Their world shifted, and the grief they share is a closure for them both. It's him that holds her steady, when Uther,  _father,_ falls apart in his grief. She almost falls under the weight of the old man's sorrow, and the old man's guilt. 

They've always been at each other's throats, yet this, this brings them together in the strangest of ways. She'll never see eye to eye with him, but she'll try to make him happy. Try to fill the gaping hole her brother's left behind.

_"He doesn't rule your life, you ass!" I screamed at him, all those years ago. "It's your life, you live it the way you want to live it. Him? He has no right to push you into something you don't want!" He was quiet, staring at me, as if he did not hear what I said, as if he did not understand. I pushed him back. "Say something you giant pillock!"_

_"I can't go against him anymore, Morgana." He replied, calmly._

_"And why the fuck not?"_

_"I'm gay." he said. "And that's going to break his heart. Please don't ask me to hurt him even more."_

He'd always thought about everyone else, ahead of himself, her Arthur. (Yes, damn you, he was  _her_ Arthur, she was the only sister he had, the only woman in his life.) Thought of father and his ambitions, before his own dreams, thought of Morgana's recitals and ballets before his own parties and footie matches, of  _him_ (the bloody bastard who broke his poor heart) and his success, before he thought of anything else.

And the bloody bastard had left him for good.

_"So you finally manned up, Arthur." I said, grinning at Merlin, the boy with the coal black hair, and the eyes and the smile. "For once, dear brother, you've made a good choice." He beamed at me, his eyes shining, as if my approval meant the world to him. He'd finally gathered his courage to ask my friend out, and it was brilliant._

_Merlin was a sweet boy, a dear friend, and fellow artist, and Arthur was anything but._

_"Don't hurt him, Arthur." I told my brother, as we headed home that night. Dear God, do I regret it._

 

It's six months later that things come to a head.

She's not over her grief yet, but she's moving on. 

Gwen's invited her to the pub for a round, and Father pushes her out the front door. "You've been a gem, my Darling. But there's no need to give up everything for me." He doesn't realize it's not just for him, but for  _Arthur_ too. He's her brother, and she's not over it.

But go she does, and there's nothing she'd like to do better than run back home, and sit in the kitchen with Uther, eating baked pasta.

She hasn't seen them since the funeral. And she does miss them. 

"Morgana! You came you darling!" Gwen engulfs her in a hug that encompasses her whole body. Marriage suits Guinevere, she's glowing, and is that a little bump Morgana spies?

She kisses Gwen on the cheek with a smack. "So am I to be Auntie Morgana?" They all laugh.

It's good to see them all again. Gwen, Lance and Percy, seated round the table smiling at her. But Gwaine's absence stands out a bit sharply. She frowns.  _That's not like Gwaine._

"Oh Gwaine texted in to say he'd be a bit late. Something about a little surprise." Gwen smiles, softly. Morgana's not very fond of surprises, not since the day she walked into her brother's room to find him overdosed on sleeping pills, with a note on his desk written for  _the sister, who's always been my better conscience._

There's a comforting lull, among them. There's jokes and laughter, and no one mentions the A-word, thank Goodness.

And so when the door jingles open, and Gwaine sweeps in with a "Whoop!" She looks up, smiling.

Only for it to freeze on her face.

She'd have to die and be reincarnated to forget that hair and those eyes.

He looks older than he did when he left to the states, broke up with her brother (though deep down, she knows Arthur broke up with _him_ ). And a little worn.

She's not ready for this.

And apparently, she's not the only one surprised. 

"Merlin!" squeals Gwen, going over to embrace the b- to hug  _merlin._ Her ex best friend (not so much friend anymore.) "Gwen," he says warmly, and Morgana finds that she can't stay in there anymore.

"If you'll excuse me," she says, icily, sweeping away from the table. She notices Gwaine's gasp, and Merlin's widened eyes, but she's past caring.

She's all the way out into the street and off towards the bus stop, when she hears him coimng after her.

"Morgana! Morgana!" She stops. But she can't turn.

_"I can't believe it, Arthur!" Merlin was heart broken, and my idiot brother was to blame. "I told you not to hurt him!" Arthur looked blank, pale like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in years. "I'm sorry, Morgie." He whispered. "Sorry? SORRY? Does that fix anything? You broke his poor heart, Arthur, you utter creep!" He looked away. "I had to. Someday, he'll come back and thank me for it." "Oh, yeah? You make me sick, Arthur." I told him. He smiled a sad, sad smile at me. "So do I Morgie, so do I."_

"Merlin." She says, flatly. He's places a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugs off. She knows he's probably very hurt, but she can't bring herself to care.

"Hey, is everything okay?" She turns, but does not look at him. "No. Nothing is okay."

Merlin frowns, his eyes look entirely sad. "Is this about Arthur? Because I'm really sorry about the break up, but it was him that-"

"Fuck you, just shut the FUCK UP!" She shrieks, launching herself at him, punching, kicking, screaming. She hasn't noticed that their friends have followed them out, but sure enough, Gwaine's in between them, and Percy's holding her back by the arms. And for the first time since that day by her brother's bed, she bursts into a torrent of tears.

He's shocked. Beyond shocked. And suddenly, his blue eyes fill up with abject terror.

"Morgana," he says softly. "Dear God, Morgie tell me he's alright, just say that he's okay, that he's moved on or anything!"

But she can only shake her head, and smile bitterly. "He's dead, Merlin. He knew he was dying when he left you, and once you were gone, he didn't want to live alone anymore. Arthur's dead, Merlin, and I'm not yet up to grieving with you."

She manages to smile a dead smile at them all, shrugs herself out of Percy's grip and walks away. 

There's a bitter wind in her hair, and soft snowflakes pave the streets of London. And behind her, she can hear the terrible echo of his screaming sobs.

_"Darkness, it's such a terrible word, don't you think?" my brother asked me, that last summer. I snorted at him, not gracing him a reply._

_But there's no other word for what this is._

If this isn't darkness, Morgana doesn't know what is.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo. Thanks for reading.   
> And yes, the title is from Roll away your stone, by mumford and sons.


End file.
